


small mercies

by miss_belivet



Series: the wonder poison archive [7]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Arguing, Bondage, Explicit Consent, F/F, Smut, not the best tagger but it's an argument-to-smut fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:29:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_belivet/pseuds/miss_belivet
Summary: Diana has withdrawn; something in the world beyond Themyscira is vexing her. Isabel intends to find out, but finds herself at Diana's mercy instead.





	small mercies

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't been following this series, it is best to read the first work—Johanna—to have an idea of some issues Isabel and Diana address here.

Isabel drops her book and stands. After hearing the fifteenth sigh from Diana in what cannot have been more than an hour, her quarters have become claustrophobic, and she is trapped by an emotion too troubling to address. For the past year, each of Diana's visits followed the same, melancholy pattern, and any attempt on Isabel's part to pry apart the issue is met with quiet rebuffs.

"Where are you going?"

Caught. Isabel closes her eyes and takes a breath, fortifying herself against the smooth, accented murmur of the woman sharpening her sword by their bedside. It is not a situation that she finds herself fond of being in.

"A walk. It is too hot in here tonight."

"Always on walks. Every night, you go for a walk. What is wrong?"

"Nothing." She turns and meets Diana's eyes. "It is only a walk."

_"Why are you lying to me?"_

With a sharp snap, the lasso curls around her wrist. A tug forces Isabel back into the room, stumbling, and the hot, burning hatred she used to foster for Diana flickers back to life as her restraints begin to scald her skin.

"Because you do not care to look beyond your own troubles!" she hisses, jerking her arm so the lasso falls away. As it does, she grabs it and pulls Diana close, wrapping it around her wrists with little resistance. "What is so terrible for you in the outside world that you do not care to speak anymore, Diana? Shall I go, so that you may live your happy life here with your mother and your sisters without being reminded of it?"

"No!" Diana's eyes grow wide, and Isabel rolls her eyes as her lover's perfectly bowed lips begin to tremble. She has the strength to overpower Isabel easily, but the glowing lasso remains around her wrists as she reaches up, cupping Isabel's jaw in both of her hands. "Do not go. I am... I am  _troubled_... by the disregard mankind has for one another. I... _hate_ them for hating one another so easily. I hate them for being so destructive."

"You hate them for being like I was."

"No." Diana winces. "Yes. Not... exactly."

"If that is not the case..." Isabel rasps, "What is?"

"I hate them for making you like that," she says, in the same earnest way that has kept Isabel scoffing since the day they met on a burning tarmac. "I hate them for creating a world that made you capable of that... that, that _encouraged_ it. I hate them for making me hate them, because at some point they made you hate them, too."

"I developed my poisons on my own." She wishes Diana could see beyond the well of emotion Isabel knows she possesses in her heart. "I killed because I wanted to kill."

And that is the truth, taken from her by the lasso she is still holding around Diana's wrists.

It has been forty years, but Isabel can still remember the dusty, lonely lab in the attic in Madrid. She can remember hardening her heart against the silence in the house and strengthening her resolve in bed at night, with her arm wrapped around a body so stiff and unyielding that it could have been a corpse already. Isabel was always cold, uncaring, but not with her wife; not until her wife became cold and uncaring with her. (And how she wants to choke herself at such stupid sentimentality now, thinking that word, because marriage was always impossible for women like them.)

"But why did you become Doctor Poison at all? Why... why do _this_ to yourself?"

The rough pad of a calloused thumb traces the twisted edge of Isabel's mouth. She purses her lips and looks hard at Diana. It is a redundant line of questioning; she knows exactly how much hatred Isabel once allowed to fester in her heart and what she did after it became too much to contain inside herself.

"Because it killed her."

"It? She killed herself, Isabel."

"No. She was dead long before she left me."

"And what did that to her?"

Isabel lets the lasso burn into her palms until she cannot bear it any longer and drops it. _They did. I did. They did. I did._ No answer will ever satisfy the powers of Hestia, because both are true and false, depending on which train of thought she chooses to fixate on at any given moment.

"Isabel..." Diana lets the golden rope slither off of her wrists into the pile on the floor, and she presses forward, capturing the scarred corner of Isabel's mouth with a kiss. "Your society did that to her. I've read your old articles, and I've read her old diaries. She was not alright, but it was not _you_ who made her that way."

A hoarse, disbelieving chuckle pulls itself from Isabel's throat. "And the reasons for her death somehow absolve my actions afterward?"

"No." The hands gripping her waist tighten until Isabel feels that she could snap under the force. "But I understand why you did it now. I have lived among them for almost half of a century, and my mother was right. I did not understand it; I thought only men could be cruel. I thought Ares made them that way. But _you_... I learned from you that the women could be cruel, too. And then Ares was dead, and humans were still cruel. Most women, however... They are not that way unless society shapes them to be like that, the same society that the men rule. The only difference between you and those women is that you were given the resources of a world war."

"Are you trying to make me feel better? I do not feel guilt over what I did, Diana."

"So you are a murderer." Diana releases her and stoops to pick up the lasso. She coils it neatly, wrapping it idly around her little finger and brightening the room with its glow. "But you have changed, and I have not... _minded,_ let us say... for decades. I just didn't want realize that you were not alone in your capacity for destruction. Now, I do."

Isabel doesn't bother to judge her lover's naïveté. She already knows that what Diana tells her is true, but to hear it from the source assuages Isabel's nerves. It is not an issue she can solve for her, but knowing what the issue is _at all_ is a mercy, given what she now knows that Johanna never shared with her.

"Diana...  _Schätzchen."_

It's a term of endearment that Isabel rarely uses—pet names are too sweet for her taste, and they sound wrong coming from her scarred vocal cords—but the way Diana's head lifts up when she hears it justifies its use. She doesn't enjoy the dull look she has seen in Diana's eyes for the past few years; she finds that anything that causes Diana pain makes her itch for her old lab on the Western Front. Isabel watches for a moment, gauging her mood. She's softer and calmer now, more receptive to a distraction, and Isabel doesn't waste her chance.

"It took you this long to understand that humans are cruel?" Her tone is cool, almost judgmental, but the fondness in her expression is unmistakable.

With a small tick of her lips, Diana accepts Isabel's unspoken challenge. Her body language shifts and transforms; the frustrated Amazon is replaced by something purely _Diana,_ confident and unstoppable. Before Isabel can move, Diana has tilted her head and sized her up, and another snap of the lasso binds both of Isabel's hands in front of her, wrapping securely around her wrists and forearms.

"If you do not lie, it will not burn you."Diana's warning breezes past her cheek on a near-silent whisper, and she grins at Isabel with a mischievous, wicked gleam in her eyes. "Do you want this?"

Isabel is fairly certain what Diana wants from her, but she doesn't reply. Instead, she raises a brow and lifts her chin, assuming a haughty air reserved for the limited appearances on the continent that she has made since migrating to Themyscira.

Diana laughs, low and deep in her throat, and yanks the lasso. "You _want_  it to burn?"

And it is burning. The heat pulses against her skin and through her sleeves, nearing unbearable levels, and she breaks. _"Yes."_

"Good."

Three steps backward deposit Isabel on the edge of their bed, and a tug of the lasso raises her arms above her head. With one hand, Diana presses her wrists firmly into the pile of furs and quilts beneath her, the other searching the belt around Isabel's waist for the clasp that keeps her linen shift closed. "Do not move your hands, or I will have to secure the lasso to the mattress with my sword again."

"Stabbed my favorite pillow," Isabel mutters under her breath as Diana slips the belt out from underneath her, unwrapping her shift and tossing it across the room in a single smooth motion. The fabric shreds in her grasp as she does so, but Isabel ignores the sound in favor of clutching at a fistful of the fur near her hands and arching her back toward the warm, wet mouth that descends onto her breast.

Diana nips at her skin and lifts her head, grinning. "That was _fifteen_ years ago. Now tell me, if I do this..."

A calloused hand pulls at her waist and slides around her back, keeping Isabel arched into the curve of Diana's body effortlessly. The lasso slowly warms against her wrists, almost sensing a question, and Diana parts Isabel's legs with her knee. She fills the gap with herself, slotting her hips between Isabel's thighs, all smooth, nicked leather and hot skin. It's the kind of move that infuriates Isabel when they're arguing, but never fails to distract her beyond all reason in bed.

Hips rock into her own, pushing her shoulders into the bed, and Isabel grasps at nothing. Teeth rake against her collarbone before latching onto a nipple, and Diana's low, quiet _hmm_ of amusement makes her knees tremble.

"Is this what you need?"

Isabel imagines an eternity spent in this position and locks her calves behind Diana's thighs, pushing back against each thrust until the fiery lasso can pull an absolute truth from her. "Yes."

Diana drops her on the bed and stills her hips, tightening her hand around Isabel's bound wrists. _"Isabel,"_ she sighs, and a practiced turn of her lips mocks disappointment. A hand trails down Isabel's side, briefly clutching her hip and smoothing over her stomach before it comes to rest on the scrap of cotton between her thighs. "Sweet, conniving Isabel, are you _lying_ to me?"

"I would—" _never,_ she wants to say, but the lasso's powers choke her. She scowls and bites out, "I was not."

"So you don't want this?" Diana's fingers rip away the fabric and trail lazily through the wetness beneath. "Not even a _little_ bit?"

"I do want it." She doesn't bother fighting her answer as a thumb circles her clit. Diana rolls her hips again, pressing two fingers into her as she does, and Isabel shivers. She turns her head, burying the left side of her face in the downy pillow beneath her.

"Don't do that."

The back of Diana's hand, bound in glowing lasso, trails down Isabel's arm and grasps her by the chin, tilting her face until she's looking into Diana's eyes. Her full weight is on Isabel, the leather of her armor and her breath warm against Isabel's skin. The lasso, still hot, pulses against Isabel's scar from her mouth to her ear as Diana traces the dark, delicate skin on her face, and then she plants her hand on the mattress beside Isabel's waist. The next time she thrusts, it's a rough jerk of her hips, and she drops her head into the crook of Isabel's neck, peppering the skin there with kiss after kiss.

When Isabel moans, Diana bites, sucking away the sting seconds later. She's leaving a mark, and Isabel will have to wear a scarf instead of her mask for at least a week, but she shudders around Diana's fingers without complaint.

"Tell me what you want." A command isn't enough to compel Isabel to speak, so she bites her tongue, answering with a sharp intake of breath and a push of her hips. Diana's thumb stills and moves away from her clit. _"What_ do you want?"

 _"Fuck."_ The lasso starts to burn, and all she wants to do is wind a hand in Diana's hair to pull her away from her throat. She strains against the cord— _when did Diana wrap it around the headboard?_ —and pushes fruitlessly against the hand between her legs. "I want you to _stop fucking teasing me_."

Isabel's sharp tone doesn't offend Diana. "Stop teasing?" She kisses down Isabel's chest, circling a dark, pebbled nipple with her tongue before licking down her ribcage. "Who's teasing?"

The lasso burns, and Isabel jabs a knee into the tough leather covering Diana's side. _"You."_

A chuckle is all she earns for her efforts, so she pushes her hips into Diana's hand, determined to please herself if her lover won't help her.

"Stop," Diana demands, her voice firm this time.

With a single flick of her thumb against Isabel's clit, she removes her hand completely, using it instead to resettle Isabel's thighs over her strong, smooth shoulders. Her own wetness on Diana's fingers leaves cool patches on the backs of her legs, and she hopes Diana feels trapped in as she tightens them around her body. _She deserves it._

Diana wastes no time with gentle touches. Her fingers push into Isabel again roughly, hooking against her sweet spot, and her mouth closes around Isabel's clit, sucking hard. The tension in Isabel's body builds quickly this time, and she throws her head back, moaning. All it takes to snap is a greedy swipe of Diana's tongue, and she comes apart, her release shuddering through every inch of her.

 _"Diana."_  Her legs are limp, but she's still clenching around Diana's fingers. In one fluid movement, her thighs are pushed to the side and her mouth is captured by drenched lips; she can taste herself on Diana's tongue and doesn't care to stop her. She feels consumed and surrounded, but when Diana reaches up and frees her hands, she still wraps her arms around her and slides her hand across her back, working at the clasps on her armor.

"Uh-uh. Stop that." Diana pushes her hands away.

Isabel quirks a brow. Diana often doesn't let her reciprocate if she's taken charge, but she also has no plans to sleep beside a woman clad in hard leather. When Diana gets the message, she sighs and pulls away, leaving Isabel feeling empty. After she peels away her armor, she returns to curl up beside her and cups her breast, idly rolling the nipple between her knuckles.

"You are feeling better?"

Diana tenses at the question, and Isabel wraps a lock of dark hair around her finger. A gentle tug is her only warning against Diana's dark thoughts from before, and her lover sighs and kisses her shoulder.

"Yes. I think I will stay a little bit longer than I planned."

"Hmm. How long?"

Diana replaces her hand with her mouth and smiles sweetly. "How long will you let me share your bed this time?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, all feedback is so appreciated. Up next: as much domestic fluff as Isabel can handle.


End file.
